I'm New: My Adventure into the World of Olympic Lifting: Meet update! Beast of the East

Woahhh!! I'm so far behind on my blog!! Sorry for those of you who have been checking in on a daily basis and have been left high and dry with my (lack of) typing. Here's what I started typing on Friday, but never finished..

"Friday before the "Beast of the East" meet. My first meet "officially" with Robinson Weightlifting, a team, a consistent and available coach. Ellyn says she doesn't expect too much from me this meet because so many things are 'new'. She's also mentioned that this meet should be more like a practice for the American Open in December. Hahhh all of those things drive me crazy to hear, but the more I've thought about them, the more sense they make...."

Fast forward to the meet (Saturday).... Leading up to the meet, I wasn't really excited or even looking forward to the meet, even up to the morning of, and once we were in the "cow palace" (more on that later) the feeling didn't really change. After introductions and once warmups started, things got better, I was getting excited, focused, and ready for the competition. Before warm-ups started, I asked ellyn to put me into the right starting position for the snatch and when I got into position, she said it looked perfect. Ha. I'm getting better! The nervousness about the meet and not having Ellyn right there with me was eased by the fact the competition platform and the warmup area were practically inches away from each other. Lorie was in charge of warming me up and telling me when to go and when to wait, and that worked well. There weren't any bumps or hiccups with the warmup process. We (Ellyn and I) talked about the speed of the warmups from nationals and I felt like there was too much time between the sets, so we sped up the warm-ups. I liked it a lot better because I had to stay focused on the lifts and there wasn't a lot of (any) time for my mind to wander and for me to be unfocused. When it was my turn to go, I was ready and from what everyone says, the first two attempts looked easy. yay for that. I was just happy I made the first two attempts! The third attempt came and Ellyn had put 72kilos on the bar and out i went. Another successful lift. 3 for 3. Only the second time I'd done that... ever.

When snatch was over, I had a long time before I even started jerking. So I ate, waited, and just relaxed before it was time to turn the switch back on and get ready for clean and jerk. I was the last lifter to go for the clean and jerk so I followed myself after each lift. I opened at 96 kilos, made it. went to 100 kilos. made that one. and then Ellyn asked me what I wanted to do next, and I said it was up to her. We went to 103kilos and I made that. My second meet where I went 6/6. The only other meet I've gone 6/6 was almost a year ago, so it was about time I had another one. :)

All of my warmups for the meet felt great! Everything that I've been working on seemed to have come together when I needed it too. Ellyn even said I didn't have any crazy feet!! HUGE! :) I wasn't sure what to think about snatch warmups (because I'm still learning the technique, positions, and feeling of the lift) and maybe not thinking about it all was what I needed to do for snatch. . . Clean and jerk was a different story. I have a little more experience and confidence with those lift, and I can do a better job feeling what the lifts are supposed to be like. My cleans were tight, my jerks were fast and solid- and they were so much easier! :) I think over the past few weeks I've had good clean days and I've had good jerk days, but I don't think they've ever come together as nicely as they did this weekend. yay!

Here are a few pictures of the team and my teammates from this last week (most of them are at the meet), but here's Joooooh and I stretching together in Kelly the week before the meet. If I would have been on top of my blogging, this would have been up sooner!

At the Meet, Someone messed with our emergency exit description... it's pretty hilarious if you can read any of it...

Here comes my random photos from the meet when the guys were weighing in and waiting for warm-ups... some of the photos are awful, and I apologize to my teammates in advance.